this is my happy place

A good pal in the pub asked what was the best phone apart from the iPhone. What do you think? James Whatley you know about these matters. What’s the best out there on balance?

My response?
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If you’re not looking for an iPhone. Then your choice is Windows Phone or Android. If you want amazing photos, look at the Lumia 925 or the Lumia 1020 (see yesterday’s post for more on that one). The latter outperforms the former in the photography stakes, however the 925 has a more aesthetically pleasing industrial design.

If photography isn’t your number one reason for having a phone (oh and if, like me, you can’t get on with the Windows Phone 8 OS) then it’s a tie between the Samsung Galaxy S4 or the HTC One – I own and adore the latter.

Finally, if budget is an issue, I’d look at the Google Nexus 4. It is, at the time of writing, Google’s flagship device and is merely an astonishing £159 SIM free on Google Play.

That’s all I got.

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Disagree with this? Let me know.

But while you’re at it, let me know which phones you recommend when people ask you this same question. Those of you that don’t reply with ‘Let me ask Whatley’, that is…

I’ve got a full review percolating around my skull for this device (kindly lent to me by the guys at Nokia Connects) but if you’re a regular listener to my podcast, The Voicemail, you probably know where I’m at with it already.

But after spending a couple of days with the device and irrespective of how I feel about Windows Phone, you can’t deny how incredible the camera on the Lumia 1020 really is.

I’m after your opinion folks, so get ready to hit that ‘Leave a Reply’ section at the bottom of this post.
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This week I received a cake* in the post.

A cake with my face on it.

— yes, that is my actual face, on a cake —

This is piece of co-marketing material from both Three and Nokia pushing the unique selling point (USP) of the Lumia 925: the awesome low-light camera. The angle?

YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO. CARROTS DO NOT HELP YOU SEE IN THE DARK. THE LUMIA 925 HOWEVER, DOES.

Why a cake? Well, it’s a carrot cake. Geddit…?

Anyway, the video that the leaflet directs you too is below, take a look –

OK, let’s park that right there.

Next up, we have this effort from O2. Their phone of choice is the Huawei Ascend P6. The USP? The super-slimness of the device. The angle?

MODERN DAY PHONES LOOK TERRIBLE IN YOUR POCKET. THESE ‘VISIBLE MOBILE LINES’ OR ‘VML’ NEED TO BE NO GONE.

Check out the video below –

Strategically, the two briefs for these could be almost identical –

Drive conversation and engagement around the DEVICE NAME by creating a funny and shareable piece of social media content that will stay true to [the] OPERATOR’s existing online tone of voice, while also highlighting the USP of our hero device.

The execution is obviously very different (plus the former had the additional push of some ‘influencer engagement’ in the shape of aforementioned baked product) but, the question to you, dear reader, is – which one do you prefer and why?

Both are funny in thei rown right, both pushing the USP of a hero device, both deliver the same message but in a very different way. I’m intrigued on your take on it so please, leave a reply below and let me know.

*I also received a hand-carved carrot featuring the Nokia and 3 logo. No, really. I didn’t eat that, nor did I get a photo (EDIT: photo uploaded as requested by carrot-carving fans), however the cake was really quite nice, so thanks for that. Why was my face on it again?

Honest to God, I genuinely have found a piece of NFC kit that not only works really well, but also fixes a problem I didn’t know I had.

I was at Nokia’s fancy new London HQ recently and I spotted the above piece of tech hanging up on the wall in the lobby. ‘I want one of these!‘ I cried. And lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, one arrived in the post for me to review. Hurrah for the internets.

So what does it actually do?

The Nokia MD-310 is, in a nutshell, an NFC-enabled bluetooth receiver for your home stereo. How that translates into the real world is as follows:

That shiny circular thing in the photo plugs into my audio system and sits nicely in my front room. Whenever I get home from work, or from a run, and I want to carry on listening to the music on my handset, I just tap my device on the glowing circle and, two seconds later, my tunes switch from my headphones to my speakers.

Simple.

How is this a problem I didn’t know I had? Well I only really use my main music system for music these days. It’s a gorgeous Marantz surround sound set which only gets to stretch its legs when I watch a film or want to get super-immersed in an Xbox game.

It misses music, much.

Having the MD-310 (gotta do something about that name) to hand means that not only can I play music from my phone from a simple tap, but I can also share my music from my Mac via bluetooth too. This is nothing short of brilliant. And it’s this multi-platform compatibility that makes this an essential piece of kit for me.

It’s quite amazing to know that these things were launched over 18mths ago now but, with the prevalence of NFC increasing month on month, this accessory deserves the timely resurgence it seems to be having.

That certainly looks like a Cyan(?) Lumia 800 to me. The flash is in the wrong place to be anything else.

But why?

Nokia has previous when it comes to placement in superhero films (trust me, I know), and it works best when it’s actually part and parcel of the film’s storyline as opposed to being fudged in at the last minute. Fortunately it’s looking very much like the former here – which is ace.

However, all I’m left wondering is: why the Lumia 800 and not the Lumia 820, or the 920 for that matter?

If I were a bad-ass super villain, I don’t think I’d settle for WP7.8.